Pharma's record deal year is also its most complicated

The Financial Times reported on 25 September that biotechs bought for at least $1bn in 2026 have already passed 2025's full-year record of 35 deals, on Stifel's count, and that the transactions themselves are getting structurally harder to complete.

• BioNTech's $1.25bn all-stock purchase of CureVac was announced in June 2025 and settled that December, with regulators weighing whether overlapping mRNA platforms and cancer vaccine programmes concentrated too much, and whether the deal was retaliatory after years of patent litigation. The related settlement with CureVac and GSK came to $740m plus royalties.
• Merck KGaA's $3.9bn acquisition of SpringWorks ran into cross-border capital markets disclosure law when a leak moved the share price before announcement.
• The driver is the patent cliff. The best-selling drugs in the industry lose exclusivity over the next few years, and buying a pipeline is the fastest way to replace the revenue, which is why the buying continues into a market where every deal is harder than the last.

The number worth watching is not deal value, it is what the closing process does to the asset. Antitrust review, questions about overlapping platforms and disclosure law stretch a transaction across quarters in which the clinical and competitive position keeps moving. The integration plan written at signing is rarely the one that fits on closing day. If you are planning around an acquired pipeline, plan for the asset as it will be when it lands, not as it looked on the term sheet. (Financial Times)